RAMALLAH — More than 10,000 Palestinian minors in the occupied West Bank and annexed Jerusalem have been held by the Israeli army for varying periods since 2000, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official said Wednesday, adding that 20 percent of those detained since June of this year are minors.

“Israel does not provide any immunity for children and regularly violates international agreements on children’s rights by humiliating and torturing them and denying them fair trials,” Issa Qaraqe, head of the PLO’s committee on detainees, said in a statement.

The release was issued to mark the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly.

Qaraqe went on to say that Israeli forces have detained around 3,000 Palestinians – for varying periods – since June of this year, about 30 percent of whom were children.

Around 95 percent of detained children were subject to beatings and torture by Israeli security personnel while in detention, while many were forced to make confessions under duress and undergo unfair trials, Qaraqe said, adding that at least 300 children are still detained in Israeli jails on various charges.

Violent practices by Israeli soldiers as well as settlers against Palestinian children are endemic that is often abetted by the authorities.

According to a PLO report for the month of October, Einas Shawkat, 5, was run over and killed by an Israeli settler in Sinjil, while four other children under the age of 17 were deliberately hit and injured in similar hit and run attacks.